Apple's legacy MacBook Pro with CD/DVD SuperDrive lives on with $100 price cut
Though it lacks a Retina display and features a thicker, heavier design, spinning hard drive, and a CD/DVD SuperDrive, Apple's legacy MacBook Pro survived the company's latest round of updates on Tuesday, and was even given a $100 price cut to $1,099.
Specifications for the 13-inch non-Retina MacBook Pro remain the same: It has a 2.5-gigahertz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 4 gigabytes of 1600MHz memory, a 500-gigabyte 5400-rpm spinning hard drive, and Intel HD graphics 4000. Despite its heft, it also gets poorer battery life than the thinner models with Retina displays: 7 hours of advertised uptime versus 9 hours for the premium 13-inch varieties.
Apple continued to offer non-Retina 15- and 13-inch models until last October, when the 15-inch legacy MacBook Pro was given the ax.
The sole remaining 13-inch model with disc drive is now by far the cheapest option for users looking to get a professional-grade notebook from Apple, costing a full $200 cheaper than the entry 13-inch Retina model. That model was given a bump on Tuesday to 8 gigabytes of RAM, doubling its previous offering, while the processor was increased to a 2.6-gigahertz dual-core Intel Core i5.
For the non-Retina 13-inch, matching the RAM of the entry Retina model adds $100 to the price tag, making it still a cheaper option. A processor upgrade to a 2.9-gigahertz dual-core Intel Core i7 is also available for $150 extra, and hard drive upgrades to a 1-terabyte spinning drive or various solid-state drives are also available.
The continued availability of the 13-inch model with SuperDrive comes as Apple has moved toward a disc-less future. Ditching optical drives has allowed Apple to avoid hardware failures with those components, and along with speedy and small flash storage has helped enable thinner and lighter notebook designs.
Though both the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lineups have now been updated with slightly faster Intel processors in 2014, rumors suggest that the company isn't done yet, as a new 12-inch notebook with a high-resolution Retina display and a completely new external design is expected to hit shelves this holiday season. KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo revealed last October that the new 12-inch MacBook will feature an "ultra-slim clamshell form factor," and observers believe it will represent the company's first MacBook Air with a Retina display.
Kuo believes the new MacBook will be powered by an Intel processor, not a custom ARM chip as has been rumored. He has predicted that the incoming model will "redefine laptop computing once again following the milestone created by the MacBook Air."
Specifications for the 13-inch non-Retina MacBook Pro remain the same: It has a 2.5-gigahertz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 4 gigabytes of 1600MHz memory, a 500-gigabyte 5400-rpm spinning hard drive, and Intel HD graphics 4000. Despite its heft, it also gets poorer battery life than the thinner models with Retina displays: 7 hours of advertised uptime versus 9 hours for the premium 13-inch varieties.
Apple continued to offer non-Retina 15- and 13-inch models until last October, when the 15-inch legacy MacBook Pro was given the ax.
The sole remaining 13-inch model with disc drive is now by far the cheapest option for users looking to get a professional-grade notebook from Apple, costing a full $200 cheaper than the entry 13-inch Retina model. That model was given a bump on Tuesday to 8 gigabytes of RAM, doubling its previous offering, while the processor was increased to a 2.6-gigahertz dual-core Intel Core i5.
For the non-Retina 13-inch, matching the RAM of the entry Retina model adds $100 to the price tag, making it still a cheaper option. A processor upgrade to a 2.9-gigahertz dual-core Intel Core i7 is also available for $150 extra, and hard drive upgrades to a 1-terabyte spinning drive or various solid-state drives are also available.
The continued availability of the 13-inch model with SuperDrive comes as Apple has moved toward a disc-less future. Ditching optical drives has allowed Apple to avoid hardware failures with those components, and along with speedy and small flash storage has helped enable thinner and lighter notebook designs.
Though both the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lineups have now been updated with slightly faster Intel processors in 2014, rumors suggest that the company isn't done yet, as a new 12-inch notebook with a high-resolution Retina display and a completely new external design is expected to hit shelves this holiday season. KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo revealed last October that the new 12-inch MacBook will feature an "ultra-slim clamshell form factor," and observers believe it will represent the company's first MacBook Air with a Retina display.
Kuo believes the new MacBook will be powered by an Intel processor, not a custom ARM chip as has been rumored. He has predicted that the incoming model will "redefine laptop computing once again following the milestone created by the MacBook Air."
Comments
Boring!!!!
What a WANKY year????
Dull iMac entry model, pointless MacBook Pro update??? and it is over halfway through 2014.
Why not just axe it? I cannot believe that many are buying it...
honestly, the current MBA is just more powerful for same price. Yes, you don't get the 'HDD', instead 128GB SSD.. but you get twice the battery time, just as much memory and the Macbook Air CPU is ironically more powerful with the upgraded integrated video which is easily twice as fast as this 2 and 1/2 year old model.
Why not just axe it? I cannot believe that many are buying it...
Because people still want optical drives? FireWire ports? Ethernet Ports? Yes, you can purchase these for the MacBook Air, but then it actually makes the MacBook Air more expensive. These are still popular in educational settings as is the MacBook Air. I actually wish they still sold the 15" MBP non-retina. We have teachers that want MacBook Pros and the 15" non-retina MBP was the perfect solution. Now, no teacher can get one because they don't offer a 15" solution without spending $2000 on a Mac when everyone else gets a $700 15" PC laptop.
What a WANKY year????
Dull iMac entry model, pointless MacBook Pro update??? and it is over halfway through 2014.
When Apple has no chips to upgrade to, how exactly are they going to make something worth while? Everyone in the industry is in the same boat. This kinda reminds of the old PPC G4 days when there really wasn't much to upgrade to. I remember when new Macs used to actually be slower than the previous ones in certain configurations.
Well, not really, so far this year has been crap, we are approaching month 9 and nothing has come out except paltry updates, a whole year of nothing until October????, yearly staggered released is better than October/November releases, most likely due to backlog nothing shipped till 2015.
Back to the same old discussion ... I wish Apple had their own chips, CPUs and GPUs that would allow them to break the shackles of Intel and Nvidia. Apple hardly need Wintel compatibility these days, for those that do, they could keep a legacy Intel based Mac in the line up.
Because people still want optical drives? FireWire ports? Ethernet Ports?
And the IR remote. And the option to take the back off and upgrade it. The old MBP still gives you a lot that the retina version doesn't, hence the continued demand for it. I myself would still rather see the MBP and MBA on separate development paths, with the MBP prioritising connectivity and rich features over thinness and lightness while the MBA continues to shed ports and anything else they can lose to get it as thin as possible, but while they both continue to converge on the same spec there will still be demand for the old model.
This is happening due to Intel's release schedule for new processors and the fact that Apple moved their iOS device releases to the end of the year. New iPads used to come out at the start of the year and iPhones in Summer. Now it's all crammed into the back-to-school and Christmas season.
Although the MBP update was minor, I'm really happy they moved to 16GB RAM all round. The 850M GPU would have been nice but the price cut on the 750M model was good.
Hopefully there will be a Retina iMac and TB display later as well as Retina Air with a new design and of course there will be new iPads and the iPhone 6. I also expect a drop-in upgrade for the Mac Pro. The Mac Mini might or might not be updated, it's not a high priority for Apple.
I suspect we'll hear something about the Beats deal in September and the new product category.
Well, not really, so far this year has been crap, we are approaching month 9 and nothing has come out except paltry updates, a whole year of nothing until October????, yearly staggered released is better than October/November releases, most likely due to backlog nothing shipped till 2015.
What difference does it make? Either you are going to wait and buy the new product or you're not. Nothing was backlogged significantly last year except the Mac Pro and what would that matter anyways. What difference does it make whether its backlogged Apr 2013 through Nov 2013 if they released the MacPro in late winter of 2013 instead of the fall of 2013.
As long as Apple gets everything released and shipping before the holiday buying season thats really all that matters.
Still, if Apple has nothing to upgrade to then what do you expect them to do? I believe these processors were just recently released. Since Apple's products pretty much all use the same processor, there isn't much Apple can do. I'm betting this is making Apple think more and more about switching processors to their own so they can control their own destiny and not have to rely on someone else.
And the IR remote. And the option to take the back off and upgrade it. The old MBP still gives you a lot that the retina version doesn't, hence the continued demand for it. I myself would still rather see the MBP and MBA on separate development paths, with the MBP prioritising connectivity and rich features over thinness and lightness while the MBA continues to shed ports and anything else they can lose to get it as thin as possible, but while they both continue to converge on the same spec there will still be demand for the old model.
Yes, that features those too. There are many reasons to keep the older model around. I still wish they had the 15" model. Being able to expand the RAM, put your own SSD in it I think are huge. You can keep it going for quite a while because of this. I have an Early-2011 15" MBP (non-retina) and I was able to upgrade the RAM and the hard drive to an SSD. I still have the option to put a larger SSD, and more RAM.
Glad to see the non retina model survived, gutted that they did not bother to up date it in any way.
Come on Apple, it's seriously long in the tooth now!!!!!!!!
They should give the mini a price cut as well. Or just put it out of its misery...
Hey, what's up with the Mac mini as is for now? It makes a great little server. I'm not sure what else I'd ever use one for though.
I wish they'd also offer OS X on a DVD. What are you meant to do if you need to reformat the hard disk and do a clean install rather than restore from a backup? This, and the fact that they've made scrollbars so unintuitive, is why I no longer use a Mac.
I wonder if these modest, incremental upgrades do serve a purpose for Apple though. Apple may be seeing a slowdown in sales, as people are waiting for a "new release", not wanting to get stung by an hotter model on the market 2 weeks after they purchase. By releasing an incremental upgrade, Apple helps push those consumers off the diving board and into the pool, since they can buy with confidence that they bought the latest model.
Crazy like a fox, they are.